Popular
by DainoChild
Summary: The world of popular music is a ridiculous one, but none of the Dex Holders-turned-idols really realised just how ridiculous it all was until Blue and Red join the stage, battling with each other, emo vs pop, to reign supreme. Also Team Plasma is kinda trying a new liberation approach by making N a pop star, but only Black seems interested. Isshu.
1. Prologue

_Hey there! So this is just a fun thing I've been writing when half-paying attention in my lectures. It's not the best written but yeah I still feel like posting it c: I hope you'll enjoy it too!_

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**Prologue**

Platinum proofread her article for the dozenth time. It hadn't taken long to write, quickly adapted from the Elite Four's official media release, the local police's, Interpol's _and_ an interview with Elite Four member Marshall, but if the news station had any credibility it would run it on the front page tomorrow morning, or be the lead story on the morning show, or be given the priority it deserved.

The door opened. Platinum jumped, but didn't cover her screen like she wanted to as the morning show anchor walked in, wearing track pants and a lumpy woollen jumper, carrying Starbucks in one hand and a bag of makeup and clothes in the other.

"Ah, in late again, Berlitz?" Gabby looked up at the clock and frowned. "Or is it early?"

"Late," Platinum replied. "I haven't been home yet."

"Oh, honey, you've gotta stop doing this to yourself," Gabby sympathetically cooed. Apparently she always babied the interns. "I have to be here at awful o'clock but you're lucky, you don't! Man, covering music must be nice…"

"Only if you don't care about real news," Platinum muttered to herself. But, still, Gabby was the anchor. She could pick what stories to read out and what not to with her temper. It was a pity she always chose the tabloid over the genuinely newsworthy ("It's a morning show, hun, they need something juicy to wake 'em up.") but the power was still hers. Platinum quickly printed her article. Her heart pounded as she picked it up and handed it to Gabby.

"Hmm, what's this?" Gabby asked, not looking at it. "Is it about the _Monochrome _breakup?"

"No, we've covered that to death," Platinum replied. "This is something different. I don't care if it's shared on the air or printed in the morning editions, but I think it's really important to report."

"Okay, let's have a look," Gabby said, smoothing it out. Of course that meant she had to read it aloud so Platinum heard all her flaws in a dramatic news anchor voice. "'Plasma Plot Prevented: Pokémon League siege stopped before it started.'" She chuckled. "That'd be the print edition part, huh?"

Platinum shrugged awkwardly, feeling oddly embarrassed.

Gabby continued in the anchor voice. "'Infamous Pokémon Rights activist group Team Plasma were discovered to have' — hun, that's too long and wordy, news has gotta be snappy, not grammatically correct, definitely not so passive — 'a castle under the Pokémon League as their base of operation.' Spooky, but we don't wanna get people freaked out over nothing, y'know?"

"It's not nothing," Platinum insisted. "Marshal is convinced they were trying to take over the Pokémon League and force everybody to release their pokémon." She scrambled for her interview notes. "And, look, he even found one of Ghetsis' plans!"

Gabby looked at Ghetsis' horribly cursive handwriting with disdain. "You can read that? Damn, hun, you're amazing."

"I'm serious, Team Plasma's up to something, and we've got to let people know!"

Gabby placed a hand on her shoulder, not patronisingly, but Platinum still wanted to take it as such. "You were in that Sinnoh stuff a few years ago, weren't you? With Team Galactic?"

"_Yes_, I was _twelve_ and I had to go into _Hell_ on my own because nobody else knew what was going on," Platinum replied. "I want to be a journalist to let people know what's going on, I want to report _news_, not some… some… waste of time about bands breaking up just because they're popular! That's not _news_!"

Gabby's eyes narrowed. "It's news if our viewers and readers are interested in hearing about it. Don't you ever forget that."

Platinum sighed heavily.

Gabby looked down at the article. "I'll fix some things and show it to the boss-man, but you've got to go home and sleep."

Platinum sighed heavily and nodded.

"After all, today the _Monochrome_ girls are releasing their first single as _Shiro_!" Gabby brightly chirped. "You'll have to be fresh to interview White."

Platinum tried really hard not to groan but it just slipped out.

"Go home," Gabby reminded her, walking from the room.

Why, why did Platinum have to be an intern stuck in entertainment reporting? Hadn't she done enough to _deserve_ to report real news? No matter what Gabby said, celebrities and their drama would never, ever be important, and it wasn't worth the time they gave it.

Platinum walked back to her desk. She closed her laptop and slid it into her bag. After a moment of hesitation, she put her interview notes and Ghetsis' plan in too. Sometimes, she wondered if she really ought to have bothered saving this world from Cyrus. He certainly wouldn't've liked pop music.


	2. First

_Here's the first actual chapter with popstars doing their diva things! Hope you enjoy, it's quite... brief, compared to chapters in my other fics, ahaha;;_

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**First**

It was the day of White and Bianca's new release and Cheren was more insufferable than ever.

"_Shiro_," he hissed, pacing Alder's office. "_Shiro_! Because their names both mean white! Like when I said we needed to be _Monochrome_ cos our names all mean black AND white! They're totally stealing my ideas!"

"C'mon, Cherry, that was four years ago," Alder said. "It's clearly just a play off what your old band, they're the white part of _Monochrome_ and now that they don't have the black part —"

"I HATE THEM!" Cheren shouted. He glared at Black. "You'd better never talk to _her_ again!"

Black sighed heavily and said nothing. He'd know, from the start, that starting an emo band was a bad idea.

"Cherry, that's unfair, they're twins."

"Stop calling me Cherry."

Alder stood up, staring down at him, and firmly said, "Cherry-pie."

Black leapt up. "I'm getting air." He didn't know whether or not Cheren was actually dating their _kinda old_ former-League-champion-turned-manager, but sometimes it really seemed like it and Black didn't want to know.

White had been warned Black it was coming for a long time. Black hadn't been surprised at all. They were, after all, eighteen. The time for emo music was passing. White knew it. Bianca knew it. Cheren still called emo 'a way of life'. Black had to wonder how his life had become _this_ after a childhood of dreaming about being just like Pokémon Master Red.

Like most disasters in Black's life, it started when White and Cheren had agreed that something was a good idea.

"We're a band now," fourteen-year-old White had cheerfully declared in contrast to their Hot Topic outfits. "I'm lead singer. Bianca's supporting and guitar. Cheren's bass. Black, you're drums and rapping."

Black had thought that it would pass from day one. Then they practiced every day. White stayed up half the night writing songs about the pain 'crawling in her skin' as Mom gave her nothing but support. Cheren decided to name the band _Monochrome_, because their names all meant black or white (he pointedly ignored that Black's real name was Hilbert and White's was Hilda, as they all had done since hearing about the colour-named Kanto Dex Holders). And making emo songs in the garage was kind of fun. Then Bianca's father heard what White was singing and protested.

"You don't have any problems!" he told Bianca. "You're perfectly happy and you're never playing this music again!"

Bianca screamed, "THIS IS WHO I REALLY AM, DADDY!" and Black realised that maybe this wasn't going to be so easy to get out of.

They started recording demos. They sent them out. They got signed. They got really popular. Thousands of teenagers worldwide, the same age as them, would turn up to hear White put on a rough, screaming voice and sing lyrics such as "CRAWLING IN MY SKIN, THESE WOUNDS THEY WILL NOT HEAL!"

The money was good, and it was kind of fun. Black didn't have to do much talking in interviews or concerts: White and Cheren were the real stars. They released two albums, had singles at the top of the global charts, had music videos full of wind and screaming and tears and broken glass. It was still kind of fun. Black thought it was kind of funny, actually, but he never dared say that to anybody but Bianca and their manager, Alder: White and Cheren were deathly serious.

"Emo isn't a phase, it's a way of life," Cheren would say.

Then White grew out of her emo phase, and thus the band. Then White realised that Bianca agreed, and went to make 'sweet music' with her. Apparently after the sex, they actually did make some new, non-emo songs, and then suddenly Black was standing with Cheren and Alder listening to White and Bianca awkwardly explain that they were leaving the band.

"It's not personally," White quickly explained to Cheren. "We've just been at this for years. I can't even think of anything else we can do with emo. Time to move on with dignity, right B?"

"Yep," Bianca agreed cheerfully.

Cheren fumed but snapped, "Fine."

"We just feel that, in order to grow musically, we need to spend some time apart," White explained in the press conference.

When she was alone with Black, White clarified, "If I ever have to sing another song about running away from home cos ooh, mummy and daddy just don't GET me, or slitting my wrists cos a boy dumped me, I swear, I'll murder-suicide the both of us."

Black patted her shoulder reassuringly, but made a note to stay away from White for a while. He'd been staying with Cheren since, pretending to be so angry with White he couldn't stay in the same room as her rather than terrified of what she'd do to him.

Honestly, Black thought it was time to bow out gracefully. He wouldn't ever be the youngest Unova Champion now, but he could still become one. He didn't regret becoming a pop star. But he couldn't imagine leaving Cheren now. He didn't want Cheren to feel abandoned. He didn't want Cheren to turn on the TV, see Black battling and hate him.

So if Cheren wanted to make more music, well, Black would tough it out. How much longer could Cheren's emo phase last? Especially without a lead singer.

Black walked into the lobby. Then his life changed forever when he saw _him_. He had long, bushy green hair that seemed to restrain itself in a ponytail, wore an all-gold Rubik's Cube on his belt, and was barking back and forth with a zorua.

Black was so weirded out that he had to go over and say, "Hi."

The guy looked up at him with extremely large blue eyes and observed, "You are Black, the drummer of _Monochrome_."

Dammit. Not a fan. "Yeah, that's me."

"My… 'father' enjoys the song about trying too hard and coming so far, though it apparently does not matter in the end," he continued. "I do not."

Black was so relieved that he laughed. "Thanks for the honesty. It's not for everyone." Himself very much included. "Um, this might seem kinda weird, but can I touch your zorua?"

The guy sighed irritably. "He is not mine. He is his own pokémon and no Trainer rules him."

Black blinked in surprise. "I like the sound of that, actually…"

He stared straight into Black's eyes with an overwhelmingly blue, searching look.

"I've never really been around pokémon," Black admitted, hurried and awkward. "Uh, my mum, she was kinda overprotective so we didn't really see them much, and Nuvema's a small town so — yeah, never happened." Black laughed nervously. "Not that you should care, I just, I've always loved pokémon, and —"

He grabbed Black's hand, placing it atop the zorua's head. The fur was quite coarse, but Black was captivated.

"There," he said, releasing Black's hand. Black reluctantly withdrew it. "I hope that you love pokémon enough to do what is best for them."

"Sure, always," Black replied, though he had no idea what the guy meant.

"My name is N," he said. "Perhaps we will see each other again. I am to join a band with this record company."

"I hope so," Black replied. "That we'll see each other again. Um. Good luck with the music. And all."

He hoped that band was _Monochrome_, or whatever they were calling it now. Alder had said that whoever he had in mind would draw in three times their previous audience, well, Black could image N's eyes could draw in the entire world.

When he glanced back at N on his way out, Black realised that N was completely gorgeous — and a total freak. But, well, who wasn't a freak in the music industry?

By the time Black managed to sneak through the back alleys back to his and White's apartment, _Shiro_'s song was at the top of the charts. Contrary to White's indie plans, it was a pop rock song with heavy electronica influences called _All the Things She Said_. It was basically 'Oh god I wanna make out with that girl she's so hot but Daddy won't like it damn oh well gonna do it anyway' and Black was certain Bianca had not only written it, but suggested the music video too. The music video featured them making out in the rain in _school girl uniforms_.

The door opened behind him.

"Ooh, like it then?" White asked, smirking.

"You're really targeting the Kanto market, aren't you," Black said. "Has Bianca's dad seen it?"

White shrugged. "He'll probably think it's better than the emo bullshit." She jumped over the back of the couch, flopping against him. "Does Cherry still hate us?"

"Yeah. A lot."

White sighed heavily. "Well… well. He's pathetic then. And I don't need someone that pathetic keeping me down."

Black smiled weakly. "He'll be fine once we start making music again."

White groaned. "Don't subject yourself to more emo, Black!"

"Don't tell me what to subject myself to."

After all, N was joining a band, Alder was trying to find them a new lead singer, the two were very likely to be linked, N had really pretty eyes…

And just to make it seem all the more likely, Alder called him that night excitedly reporting that he'd found them a new leader singer, he couldn't wait for them to meet, come in at 12 tomorrow, it's perfect, etc, etc, oh yeah don't tell White it's super-top secret.

Black spent all morning convincing himself it really had to be N. Who else could it possibly be? He hadn't heard about Elesa signing anybody new to the label. Not that he had regular conversations with Elesa or anything, but… it had to be N.

He walked into their usual studio-cum-office three minutes late and wondered why the new person sitting in front of Alder didn't have bushy green hair, rather sleak brown hair, and was so short, and turned to him and had boobs and brightly said, "Hey, you're cute! You're the angst-rapper, right?"

"I guess?" Black managed to reply. His head was spinning with confusion.

She smiled (kind of like a wolf at a lamb) and said, "I hear you were into the Kanto League back when Red was in it. Recognise my adorable face?"

Black slowly shook his head.

"Hmph. Always was overshadowed by those idiot boys." She flicked her hair back elegantly. "I'm Blue. Nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too," Black replied, though it would've been better to be meeting N. He took his seat beside Cheren, and quickly said hello.

Cheren didn't reply. He was side-eyeing Blue.

Blue kept smiling pleasantly.

"So!" Alder brightly said. "You might've seen some of Blue's movies —"

"Romantic comedies," Cheren hissed under his breath.

"But I've wanted to go into music for a real long time!" Blue insisted. The wide-eyed excited act was pretty good. All she'd have to do was flatter Cheren a bit and he'd be on her side. "My sorta-brother Silver already does rock, which is kinda cool, but I'm not all that experienced on my own and I just always _loved_ _Monochrome_, it was so brilliant, I cried all day when you broke up."

Black didn't believe that for a second. Blue had to be twenty, at least, even if she passed for about sixteen, and if Black was remembering the Kanto Tournament right, she'd spent most of her time sassing people, not battling.

Cheren lapped it up.

"But I don't think I'd ever be able to replace White, and I don't want to," Blue continued. "I wanna do music _inspired_ by how great you guys were, but _better_."

"I guess we can work with that," Cheren relented like he wasn't burning for revenge.

Blue smiled. "I promise, it'll be amazing. We'll be amazing."

Black doubted that. He only voiced his scepticism when he and Cheren were alone.

"It's very strange," Cheren agreed. "From romantic comedy movies to emo music? But her sorta-brother, that's got to be Silver, and if you know anything about what Silver's music is like, it makes sense."

Black didn't know anything about Silver's music, just that Silver's primary motivation for being a singer was bringing shame to Team Rocket. All the daddy issues around 'my father runs a criminal organisation' probably inclined Silver towards the emo side of rock.

When Blue turned up the next day with lyrics and declared, "They're bound to be good, my sorta-brother Silver helped me write them," Black found out he was right. He flicked through the notebook, marvelling at the cutesy handwriting forming gems such as '_Wake me up inside, call my name and save me from the dark_'. It was very, very difficult not to laugh.

"This is brilliant," Cheren breathed, snatching the notebook from Black. "Better than anything White ever came up with."

"Now now, don't be rude to your ex-members just because I'm better," Blue giggled. "I can't scream-sing like that, so I was thinking, maybe we could go for a… um… more ethereal sound."

Cheren looked at Black, clearly demanding an opinion.

Black shrugged. "We did say we were gonna be experimenting with new styles. In the breakup press conference."

"Good point," Cheren said. He didn't even grit his teeth. Progress was excellent. "Let's get to work, then."

Blue had an entire songbook of lyrics and was extremely certain of the music to go with it, so it was actually some of the easiest song writing of Black's career. Usually they wrote according to who had just experienced a breakup (usually White) or a fight with their parents (usually Bianca) and those things weren't easy to predict. And because of that system, usually whoever wrote the lyrics wasn't very willing to compromise or edit them. Black had only written the lyrics to a couple of their songs and he'd definitely been the worst in that respect. Blue, however, seemed distant enough from the pain she was writing about to edit it _without being asked to_.

"Did you really write these?" Black asked quietly in one session for a song about breaking up with some demanding guy while Cheren was in the other room.

Blue tutted. "Doubting my commitment to the emo way of life, Black-dear?"

"…kinda easy when you call me that, yeah."

She crossed out a line and wrote over it. "Well. Silver might have done most of the work on this one. And a few of the others. He's a very tragic guy, y'know?"

"Why're you doing this?" Black demanded.

Blue glared at him. "Why're _you_ doing this? You clearly hate it. Your little boy-toy might be too blind to see it, but you should've gotten out when your sister did."

"I don't hate it that much," Black insisted. "I just… I only wanna make sure Cheren's not gonna get hurt again so soon, okay?"

"Okay, I'm not gonna hurt your boy-toy by ditching the band."

Black struggled not to sigh. With effort, he replied, "Okay. Thanks."

Blue nodded and scribbled out a few more words. She paused. "Besides… pretty much all the Dex Holders ended up in music careers. And acting. And modelling. Seems like the natural thing after saving the world."

"…heroes become pop stars?"

Blue smiled brightly. "Precisely, Black-dear."

When Cheren returned, Blue announced, "We need to come up with a name, before Elesa gets on our case about it."

"Bloody Gothic Rose 666," Black deadpanned.

"Get serious, Black," Cheren scowled.

"Yeah, seriously," Blue agreed.

They decided on _[bruised]_. Apparently the lowercase and square brackets were important.

Black didn't feel very close to Blue, and they didn't get much closer during the recording sessions. She charmed Cheren so brilliantly he wouldn't hear a bad thing about her, but she hadn't even tried with Black. Perhaps because with Cheren on her side, Black would just passively go along with whatever and phase out to wonder where N was and what he was doing and why he was so pretty. Blue was just someone he worked with and tried not to be too suspicious of. Regardless, they worked well together. Black had never seen an album come together so quickly, or so well. Next thing he knew, their debut was a week away, and he still hadn't told White who their new band member was and if she saw the debut and remembered who Blue was, she'd be so pissed off.

Alder and Elesa still refused to let him tell.

"You're not working with White anymore, she should understand," Elesa replied. "This is gonna be the best kind of break! You're debuting at the same time as another one of our bands, and it's going to be so _fantastical_."

"Is N in that band?" Black asked before he could stop himself.

"Why, yes," Elesa replied, smirking slightly. "You noticed that addition then?"

"We met, briefly," Black quickly explained. "Before he was signed. In the lobby. Haven't seen him since."

Elesa nodded slowly. "Well. They'll be called _Natural Harmony_, it's a trio of very fantastic boys, and that's as much as you need to know!"

"We're not debuting together?" Black asked.

"Oh, of course not, can't have emo and pop on the same stage," Elesa laughed. She was way too gleeful. It made Black very, very suspicious. "Now, get back, you've gotta rehearse!"

On the day of their debut, Blue turned up with her hair dyed black and heavily layered in true emo style. She was wearing a large t-shirt with a sequined red broken heart over where her heart would be, red and black arm socks, and it all went downhill and tulle from there so quickly that Black couldn't look at her without snickering.

"Okay boys, our big day is finally here!" Blue announced. "Isn't it great?!"

She sounded somewhere between a soccer mum and a soccer coach.

"It's been really fun working together, huh?" she continued. "So let's make this concert amazing and _beat that goddamn pop band who're trying to steal my limelight_."

She sounded legitimately pissed off.

"So boys, emo the hell up _right now_."

Black quickly struggled into his black skinny jeans and put on his eyeliner in rings mastered over the years. Being the drummer, he didn't wear loose arm socks, just a long-sleeve fishnet top under a t-shirt very similar to Blue's. Cheren had the same, albeit much tighter than Blue and Black's. So they were matching, huh? Probably to create a sense of unity.

They went on stage to the screams of much younger teenagers, and, well, that part felt pretty much as great as always. Black liked performing. He was never nervous about it, because even if he screwed up, their fans were happy just to see them.

Silence fell as Blue approached the mic. She pulled the microphone viciously from the stand and sang angrily into it, "_Now I will tell you what I've done for you…_"

And the screaming started again louder than ever, even though it was a song no one had heard, just because Blue sold it that well.

"_Fifteen thousand tears I've cried! Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you, and you, still won't hear me…_" She clung to the microphone stand, tilting with it, as she airily cried, "_Going under…!_"

And with the bridge, they were completely hers. As she thanked them over screams of complete adoration, Black felt more willing to be hers too. Begrudgingly.

Black wanted to stay on stage longer, but they had strict orders to perform then go wait in their dressing room. Elesa was terrifying when disobeyed, so they obeyed.

"Okay," Blue panted, scrambling for the TV remote. "Let's check out our preppy competition."

_Natural Harmony_ was already performing, mid-instrumental introduction. The shot was on their drummer, a red-and-white jacket wearing, strained smiling sixteen-year-old boy with very large blue hair. It panned across to N, playing a guitar even though it didn't really sound like there was much guitar in the track, and oh god he looked beautiful. They'd brushed his hair and Black kinda of didn't like it as much but at the same time it just looked so nice and he wanted to run his fingers through it so badly.

Then the singing started and the camera quickly cut to the singer as he crooned, "_Baby can't you see, I'm fallin'…_"

"NO FUCKING WAY!" Blue shrieked.

It took Black a moment. He squinted at the screen, at the tight blue jeans and red short-sleeved jacket and mussed up black hair, but it wasn't until the singer opened his blood red eyes that Black realised who it was.

"NO FUCKING WAY!" he shrieked too.

"What?" Cheren asked. "It's just a bad pop song."

"IT'S RED!" Black shouted. "CHAMPION RED!"

Blue understood his distress. "AFTER ALL THIS TIME HE'S BACK FROM MT SILVER AND… AND THIS IS WHAT HE'S DOING?! RIGHT NOW?! THIS IS SO NOT FAIR! HE'S GONNA STEAL ALL MY LIMELIGHT! WHAT A FUCKING ASSHOLE!"

"TOTAL FUCKING ASSHOLE!" Black agreed.

They both fell silent and looked at the screen again. Red was _dancing_ as he sang, "_With a taste of your lips I'm on a high, you're toxic, I'm slippin' under_."

Red.

Black's childhood idol. The ultimate Pokémon battler. The undefeated Champion of Kanto and Johto. Singing pop. Cheesy pop. About kissing. And that wasn't even the worst thing. The worst thing was… _He was kind of good._

"Oh, it is so on," Blue hissed. "We've gotta fucking crush them."

"Destroy them," Black agreed.

Cheren shook his head. "It's only stupid pop."

They all glanced at the screen again.

Red blew a kiss at the camera.

Blue snarled and snapped the remote in half.

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_Songs features in this chapter include: 'All the Things She Said' by t.A.T.u., 'Crawling' and 'In the End' by Linkin Park, 'Bring Me To Life' and 'Going Under' by Evanescence and "Toxic' by Britney Spears. All lyrics quoted are from these songs and not my own!_

_So, okay, like I said, I'm writing this very casually so it's not gonna have any regular update schedule, sorry;; But it's kinda fun and easy soo at the same time yeah who knows, updates'll happen when they happen._

_Next chapter will explain how the heck N and Red ended up in the same band and how they feel about this._

_Annnd I hope you enjoyed it! Please review :D_


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